Democrats 'Bear Burden Of Race'

Many Feel Black Cndidates Must Regain White Vote

November 10, 1991|By N.Y. Times News Service

WASHINGTON — In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson confided to a young aide, Bill Moyers, that by signing the Civil Rights Bill into law he had ``delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.''

In a sense Johnson got it wrong; there are still more registered Democrats in the South than there are Republicans. But some political analysts now think that if LBJ had substituted the words ``the white vote'' for ``the South,'' he would have been right on target.

The bill, the most far-reaching civil rights measure ever passed by Congress, has been credited with greatly reducing discrimination and helping to create a viable black middle class.

But juxtaposed with this progress are the fortunes of the Democratic Party, which, except for the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, has been shut out of the White House since 1968.

These days there is a provocative line of reasoning that attempts to explain the slide: The Democratic Party is bleeding white working- and middle-class voters in presidential elections in part because it is seen as being too concerned with the plight of the poor and of racial minorities - mainly blacks.

Some Democratic analysts think that the best bet for leading the party out of its racial thicket may be black politicians who can appeal to whites. Doug Wilder, the black governor of Virginia who is a fiscal conservative, seemed to aspire to that role.

But, in searching for a solid base for a run for the party's presidential nomination, he is more and more making a traditional appeal to black voters.

A few Democrats see the way out of the racial conundrum by fashioning programs to help people lift themselves out of poverty through work, home ownership and investments, rather than transfers of government money.

But some Democrats are beginning to say that it is black politicians and civil rights leaders who will have to change if the party is to gain back the middle class.

``I'm inclined to believe that the Democratic Party is permanently handicapped by its civil rights role,'' said Milton Morris, a vice president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group specializing in black issues. ``That image is not going to be easy to erase. What is now happening is long-term Republican ascendancy based on the burden of race that the Democrats bear.''

Analysts say that these whites who have crossed over to vote Republican, in the main, are not racists loath to see blacks move up the economic ladder.

Instead, they see Democrats as asking them to pay - either through taxes or by giving up a job or a promotion - for programs to compensate for a history of discrimination that they had nothing to do with.

Whether this is a valid perception is almost irrelevant where the party's election performances are concerned.

``It's simply a question of mathematics,'' said Peter Brown, author of ``Minority Party,'' and a proponent of this political theory.

``About 80 percent of the people who vote in presidential elections are white, and since Lyndon Johnson, no Democratic presidential candidate has gotten more than 46 percent of that vote.''

Mark Mellman, a pollster who has worked with a number of Democratic candidates, agrees. ``There is no question that the Democratic Party has a problem on race,'' he said.

``Many of the philosophical principles we have espoused put us fundamentally at odds with the majority of the American people.''

Cognizant of the party's racial Achilles heel, some Democratic officials and civil rights leaders gave a palpable sigh of relief over two recent events - the decision of the Rev. Jesse Jackson not to seek the party's presidential nomination next year, and the passage of a new civil rights bill with the blessing of the Bush administration.

Racial politics places Democrats in an ethical and political dilemma: If the party moves to recapture those whites who have moved away, won't it alienate blacks who have been the Democrats' most loyal supporters in recent years?

And Morris says that the situation presents difficulties for blacks as well.

``Blacks could change the dynamic, but the only way they could do that is to leave the Democrats and go into a Republican Party which doesn't really care about them and is doing just fine without them,'' he said.